"DRI" 2007 Obituary

DRIESMAN o@ca.on.middlesex_county.london.london_free_press 2007-01-09 published
DRIESMAN,
SarahPeacefully at University Hospital on January 6, 2007, Sarah
DRIESMAN
passed away with family by her side. Born January 14, 1922 in
Romania (Gross Laseln in Transylvania). Survived by her children
Jack
(Karen) of Alvinston, Ontario, Sandra (Fred)
FRANK of Arva,
Gerald
(Tina) of Strathroy, Diane
MAYNE of London and Robin of
London. Also survived by 8 grandchildren and 7 great-grandchildren.
Sister to Anna
MICKLE of London, Helen (Lloyd)
CHIVERS of Vienna,
George (Shirley)
HILLNER of Tillsonburg, Martha
McCURDY of Tillsonburg,
Herta (Don)
WOLFORD of Stony Plain, Alberta, and sister-in-law
Marie HILLNER of Tillsonburg. Sarah was predeceased by her daughter
Patricia McLAREN of Rockyford, Alberta, and her brother Michael
HILLNER of Tillsonburg and brother-in-law of Harold
McCURDY of
Tillsonburg. A funeral service will be held at Forest Lawn Memorial
Chapel, 1997 Dundas St. E. (at Wavell) on Thursday, January 11,
2007 at 2 p.m. with visitation 1 hour prior. If desired, memorial
donations to the London Health Sciences Foundation or the charity
of your choice would be appreciated.

DRINKWALTER o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2007-08-24 published
Fleeing hornet attack, man falls off roof, dies
By Canadian Press, Page A7
Milton, Ontario -- A guitarist who once played in a band with
Stompin' Tom Connors has died after tumbling off the roof of
his apartment building while being pursued by a swarm of angry
hornets.
Wayne CHAPMAN, 52, had been enjoying a drink with a friend on
the roof Wednesday when he felt something sting him, Detective
Sergeant Murray
DRINKWALTER said.
He got a fly swatter and started flailing at some yellow jackets
that were buzzing around the fire escape of the three-storey
rooming house in the southern Ontario community.
As he was retreating from the wasp attack, Mr.
CHAPMAN lost his
footing, fell over the side of the building and landed on the
gravel driveway about six metres below.
He never regained consciousness and died of cardiac arrest a
few hours later in a Toronto hospital.
"It was a case of a couple of buddies having cocktails on the
rooftop and it took a turn for the tragic," said Det. Sgt.
DRINKWALTER,
a Halton police spokesman.
Ken MURRAY, 66, who manages the 15-room boarding house, said
he had repeatedly warned Mr.
CHAPMAN to keep off the roof.
He also said he told him to stop swatting at the hornets, which
had a nest near the top of the roof near the fire escape.
But Mr. CHAPMAN, who lived by himself and worked as a janitor
in the Milton industrial park, would often climb through his
back window to get to the flat roof to socialize, play his guitar
and cool off on warm nights.
Mr. CHAPMAN still had an old vinyl album with his picture on
the jacket beside Stompin' Tom.
Friends said it was one of his most cherished possessions, along
with a battered guitar.
"I think he'd be happy if we buried him with his old guitar,"
Gordon BROWN said.
It was the second bizarre insect attack in Halton this week.
On Tuesday night, a Burlington, Ontario, man inadvertently set
his house on fire when he flicked his cigarette at bees swarming
around him on his back porch. The embers ignited some dry material
in the eaves and started a fire that caused about $60,000 damage.

DRINKWALTER o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2007-09-01 published
The hurtin' life of a Milton man
By Peter CHENEY,
Page M1
Wayne CHAPMAN's final stage was a warped square of plywood on
the roof outside his $110-a-week rented room. He would strum
his guitar, look out over the rooftops of Milton, and remember
the glory days when he played with the legendary Stompin' Tom
Connors.
Last week, Mr.
CHAPMAN's guitar was placed in his casket, a final
tribute to a man whose life exemplified the hurtin' ethos of
country, the music he loved the best. Long divorced, the 52-year-old
lived in a boarding house with 14 other men, many of them down
on their luck. His previous residence was a room above a tavern.
Mr. CHAPMAN worked as a custodian at a car-parts plant, cleaning
the cafeteria and changing toilet-paper rolls.
"He didn't have much," said Ken
MURRAY, the superintendent of
the boarding house. "But he was a good guy."
Like Stompin' Tom, whose experiences included hard labour, abandonment
and poverty, Mr.
CHAPMAN was a genuine country music character,
informed by heartache and loss. His possessions were limited
to a few guitars and some beaten furniture. He had lived for
a while in Georgetown, but moved to Milton after he was targeted
in a series of robberies. His entertainment consisted of buying
a case of Molson Canadian to drink with Friends. He rode to work
each day on a hand-me-down mountain bike he called "The Dirty
Dawg."
In Milton, he lived in a single room, where he cooked his meals
in a microwave and washed his dishes in a shared bathroom. Unlike
Mr. Connors, who lives in a comfortable home in a nearby township,
Mr. CHAPMAN had never made enough to escape the endless cycle
of low-paid day jobs. But to country music insiders, his time
on stage with Mr. Connors meant that he had been validated, if
not financially rewarded.
Mr. CHAPMAN's death was a strange one. On August 23, he came
home from work, and went out on the roof with his guitar and
a few beers.
His second-floor room was one of the hottest in the house. He
liked to escape the heat by stepping out onto the roof through
his window, where he would play Stompin' Tom and Johnny Cash
tunes on his weathered acoustic guitar.
This day, he was joined by one of his housemates, who shared
a beer with him. It was late afternoon, and the weather was perfect.
The roof was the size of an average room - it was a poor man's
deck, with a flat black top and no railings. As usual, there
were a few yellow-jacket wasps buzzing around. The insects had
built a nest inside a crack in the building's brick wall, and
had defied the superintendent's extermination efforts.
Mr. CHAPMAN hated the yellow jackets. Just weeks before, he had
jammed a stick into the nest, against the superintendent's recommendation,
checking to see if a recent spraying had killed them off. It
hadn't. Now he was in a fighting mood. He fetched a fly-swatter
and began swinging at the wasps. It was a bad idea. He had unwittingly
triggered the wasps' defence mechanism, and countless more poured
out of the nest to help their embattled fellows.
Mr. CHAPMAN soon found himself in a full-on battle, walking backwards
and using his swatter to try to fend off the growing insect horde.
In the room below, Mr.
MURRAY heard his footsteps on the rooftop.
"Jesus," he thought. "I told him to stay out of there."
There was a thud. Consumed with his battle with the wasps, Mr.
CHAPMAN
had stepped off the edge of the roof and fallen six metres to
the pavement. He was rushed to the Milton hospital, then airlifted
to Saint Michael's in Toronto. He died of his injuries and a forensic
autopsy was performed the next day. His death was ruled accidental.
"It's a very sad case," said Detective Murray
DRINKWALTER of
Halton Regional Police.
It was the end of a sad life, whose highlight was a 1985 appearance
on a Stompin' Tom Connors album called Stompin' Tom Is Back to
AssistCanadianTalent. Mr.
CHAPMAN contributed two songs (My
Home Town and The Bars of Vancouver) and was pictured on the
cover, dressed in black jeans and a Stetson.
The album was propped on his coffin this week at his small funeral
in Erin, Ontario Among the visitors at the funeral home, according
to locals, was Stompin' Tom, who dropped by to pay his final
respects to a fallen musical comrade. Also there were his mother
and some of his brothers and sisters. The family, along with
Mr.Connors, declined to talk about Mr.
CHAPMAN, but others filled
in a few of the blanks.
According to Fred
WHITE/WHYTE, his supervisor at the car-parts plant,
Stompin'Tom entered Mr.
CHAPMAN's life when his father took
in the iconic singer many years ago during a dark period.
"He came home one day, and there was this tall, skinny guy,"
said Mr. WHITE/WHYTE. "It was Stompin' Tom."
Mr. CHAPMAN went on to perform occasionally with Mr. Connors,
and never stopped talking about how amazing it was to play with
a genuine musical legend. "To him, Stompin' Tom was the second
coming of Jesus," said Mr.
MURRAY. "He loved him."
"A lot of musicians would give anything to play with Stompin'
Tom," said Duncan
FREMLIN, a guitarist who used to tour with
Mr. Connors. "He's the real thing."
His thoughts were echoed by Bob
McNIVEN, a guitarist who toured
with Mr. Connors in the early 1980s. "Stompin' Tom is a legend,"
he said. "To play with him was an accomplishment." Mr.
McNIVEN,
who now works for Statistics Canada but still plays in a country
band called Whiskey Jack, has never forgotten the talent and
commitment that Mr. Connors brought to his performances.
"He really meant it. He'd be singing, and there were tears running
down his face. You'd look out into the audience, and they were
crying too."
Although he didn't know Mr.
CHAPMAN (hundreds of musicians have
toured with Mr. Connors's various bands,) Mr.
McNIVEN said he
felt a pang of recognition when he heard about the death last
week. "He played guitar with Stompin' Tom. I played guitar with
Stompin' Tom. In some way we were brothers. We drank from the
same cup."
Back at the rooming house where Mr.
CHAPMAN died, Mr.
MURRAY
also reflected on his companion's life and times. "He didn't
have a mean bone in his body," said Mr.
MURRAY as he drank his
fourth tumbler of Silk Tassel scotch. "He was a good guy. But
he should have left those wasps alone."
Mr. MURRAY, now 66, spent about 30 years as a professional country
musician, playing in clubs and bars and, briefly, for a Montreal-based
television show. Like Mr.
CHAPMAN was, he's divorced and lives
alone with his dusty musical equipment.
"I'm a has-been," he says. "We're all has-beens here.
"Here's to Wayne."

DRINKWATER o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2007-12-08 published
TAILOR/TAYLOR,
EveRidoutWidow of Leonard A.
TAILOR/TAYLOR, nearing her 92nd birthday, died peacefully
and comfortably in her home in the presence of her daughters,
on December 5, 2007. Devoted mother of Eve-Lynne J.
TROXEL
(George
Fabian) and Jocelyn M.
COOK.
Loving grandmother of Matthew and
Allison LEE,
RebeccaTROXEL and Jillian
COOK. Sister of Grace
(Bill) CLEMENTS.
Predeceased by brothers Howard, Ernest and George
RIDOUT, sister Mary
AYERS, and sister-in-law Irene
ANDREWS.
Eve
was loved, admired and respected by all who knew her and her
passing will leave a huge gap in the hearts of her family and
Friends. Special thanks to Doctor Mark
NOWACYNSKI, Annette
DRINKWATER
from Senior Peoples' Resource in North Toronto and nurse Judy
DEMPSEY for all their warm and loving care. Memorial service
will be held at Murray E. Newbigging Funeral Home at 733 Mt. Pleasant
Rd. in Toronto, on Wednesday, December 12, 2007 at 11: 00 a.m.
Flowers or donations to the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Ontario
would be appreciated.

DRISCOLL o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2007-06-15 published
FORER,
Ruth "
Ruta"
On Tuesday, June 12, 2007 at North York General Hospital, at
the age of 88. She was predeceased by her husband, Harvey (Chaim)
FORER, the love of her life. She leaves behind her loving daughter
and son-in-law, Helen and Marv
BERNSTEIN, and her beloved grandchildren
(the lights of her life,) Laura
DRISCOLL and her husband Brandon
and Daniel
BERNSTEIN.
She survived the holocaust but was never
the same after the death of her beloved husband. At Benjamin's
Park Memorial Chapel, 2401 Steeles Ave. W. (3 lights west of
Dufferin) for service on Sunday, June 17, 2007 at 10: 00 a.m.
Interment Independant Friendly Workers Circle section of Pardes
Shalom Cemetery. Donations in her memory can be made to the Heart
and Stroke Foundation, 416-499-1417.

DRIZEN o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2007-06-29 published
DRIZEN,
Alan
On Wednesday, June 27, 2007. Alan
DRIZEN beloved husband of Barbara.
Loving father and father-in-law Kevin and Joanna. Dear brother
and brother-in-law of Lawrence and Esther, Stanley and Pauline,
Sarah and Haron
HILLEL, and Linda and Michael
WOLBURGH. At
Benjamin's
Park Memorial Chapel, 2401 Steeles Ave. W. (3 lights west of
Dufferin) for service on Sunday, July 1, 2007 at 2: 30 p.m. Interment
the Community section of Pardes Shalom Cemetery. Shiva 82 Bowring
Walk. Memorial donations may be made to the Ontario Heart and
Stroke Foundation, 416-499-417.